


Honey and Feathers

by ThefirstRanger



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pranks, The Gathering, Will and Gilan met as kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:06:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24833551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThefirstRanger/pseuds/ThefirstRanger
Summary: Gilan is playing a prank on Halt at Castle Redmont and he enlists the assistance of a ward kid who is more than happy to help him out. Years later, Will can't figure out why Gilan looks so familiar at the Gathering before he's even met the guy and vice versa.
Relationships: Crowley Meratyn & Halt O'Carrick, Gilan & Halt O'Carrick, Gilan & Will Treaty, Halt O'Carrick & Will Treaty
Comments: 22
Kudos: 169
Collections: Ranger's Apprentice Summer Fluff 5K





	Honey and Feathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zunnietheweirdo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zunnietheweirdo/gifts).



Gilan loves being Halt's apprentice. He loves the chance he gets to help people, he loves the training, he loves everything about it. Well, everything except the boring meetings Halt drags him to every so often. Baron Arald and Halt have a monthly meeting where they discuss the most boring and lengthy topics available (Gilan's never been to one of the meetings, but he can imagine) and for the past three months since becoming an apprentice, Gilan's been instructed to patiently wait outside the door and be absolutely silent. 

Being silent and unseen are two things that Gilan is very good at, and he has no trouble staying in one place for hours in the woods, but it seems to him that Halt is trying to torture him because why bother with people seeing you in a castle and passing by if you can't talk to them to pass time? 

An idea pops into Gilan's head the day before Halt is scheduled to have his meeting with Arald. It's a petty idea that will make Halt furious if it works and Gilan loves it. To set it in motion, he casually mentions to Halt that he needs to grab something from the castle armory for his sword lessons and could he do it before the meeting because there was always time to spare? 

Halt grunts and doesn't say anything, but Gilan knows from the way he didn't say no that Gilan would have all the time he needed.  
~  
As soon as he's at Castle Redmont, Gilan skitters away, citing a need to go to the armory, which Halt shrugs off. Perfect, now he's free to go grab the honey and feathers. 

Ten minutes later, Gilan is just around the corner from Arald's office and he would just stroll on in, but there are some cleaners in the hallway and Gilan knows that he can't let anyone see him with the bucket. He's stumped and Halt told him that if he's stumped, to try and look at things from a different perspective. So Gilan starts to silently creep around the nearby hallway to see if there was any diversion he could come up with to distract the cleaners. 

Gilan's so focused on the prank that he barely sees the small boy until he's next to Gilan. 

"What are you doing?" asked the little boy. He didn't seemed alarmed by the bucket of honey and feathers, but rather curious. The kid, he can't be more than eight, looks up at Gilan. "Are you pranking the baron?"

Gilan can appreciate the logical leaps the kid, mostly likely a ward, took to make that conclusion, he might make a good ranger one day, but he doesn't appreciate the too loud voice the kid is using. 

"Are you going to snitch on me, a ranger?" Gilan feels a little bad about intimidating the kid, but his guilt disappears when the tiny kid swells up, unintimidated. 

"I'm no snitch. I could even help you."

Now that was promising. "Do you think you could distract the cleaners so I can put these buckets on top of the door?"

The boy deflated and a frown appeared. "They'll see me and think I did the prank. I can't get caught."

That was true; Gilan hadn't thought of it like that. He was stumped and the duo stood there in brooding silence until the boy piped up. 

"Actually, I think there is a way we can get into the office unseen."  
~  
Gilan likes to think he knows Castle Redmont pretty well and he prides himself on having a keen sense of his surroundings, but he blinked rapidly when Will pushed the metal grate and it popped out onto the floor of Baron Arald's office. 

"This castle has secret passages and vents?" Gilan's mind was racing; the possibilities were endless.

"Yep," stated the kid proudly. "I've been using them for years to hide during games and steal pies."

Right then and there, Gilan decided that this was the coolest eight year old he had ever met. "You are a lifesaver."

Gilan silently drops to the ground and the boy hands him down the buckets, trembling slightly as he does from the effort. The buckets are artfully arranged about the doorway and Gilan estimates that it'll be just a few more minutes before Halt comes walking in.

There's no noise made as Gilan clambers back up into the vents and the boy leads them back out into the the hallway. 

The boy looks Gilan straight in the eye, dead serious, as he says "You can't let anyone know I helped you. I don't want to lose dessert privileges because Jenny is helping Master Chubbs bake the cookies and I told her I would eat them."

There was no way Gilan would tell anyone he had help; he wasn't a snitch and Gilan could respect dessert privileges. 

"Your secret is safe with me. Thanks for the help, kid." Gilan mimes locking his lips and throwing away the key. The boy grins and starts to walk away, but before the boy disappears around the corner, he shouts:

"My name is Will!"  
~  
When Halt and Arald come walking down the hallway ten minutes later, all they see is a silent Gilan standing watch. 

He snaps them a semi-sarcastic salute that neither of them pick up on and Gilan is in the perfect position to hear Arald's splutters and Halt's angry grunt as empty buckets roll into the hallway and land at Gilan's feet. 

Gilan decides the prank had been worth it even if Halt had made him clean Arald's entire office with the smallest brush Gilan had ever seen.  
~  
"I don't know how Gilan did it!" Halt raged at his friend later that evening. "I'm proud of him but it's driving me crazy!" 

Crowley chuckled from his office chair. "Can you not just appreciate his efforts?" 

Halt shot a glare at his friend. "You're not the one who had to go to a meeting covered in honey." 

"I heard Arald got the brunt of it." Crowley was trying to be serious but he could see a fleck of honey that Halt had missed on his shoulder and tiny feathers in Halt's beard that made him look the slightest bit like a chicken. Albeit, a murderous chicken glaring holes in him, but a chicken nonetheless. 

"I know he had help. I just don't know who." 

Halt didn't care all that much about the fact that Gilan had pranked him, he cared more about how Gilan had done it. It was Halt's job to know these types of things and the guards had said they hadn't let anyone into the room and that Gilan had been completely silent for the entire meeting. Either Gilan could turn invisible or he had help. 

"Do you want my advice?"

"No." 

Crowley continued anyway. "Forget about the how and the why and the who and instead just enjoy it for clever prank it is."

Halt glared at his old friend. "Are you sure you didn't help Gilan?"

"I wish I did."  
~  
It was Will's first gathering and he was at the edge of his saddle with excitement. Meeting all the other rangers was exciting enough, but Halt had said that his former apprentice Gilan was going to be there. There had been so many stories told about Gilan in the cabin which ticked Will off to the fact that Gilan was going to be loads of fun. Halt rarely talked about anyone as much as he talked about Gilan, except for maybe Crowley and some lady named Pauline, and Will was eager to take the chance to grill Gilan for embarrassing stories about Halt. 

At the gathering, Will got introduced to a flurry of rangers right in a row who had come up to Halt to talk, but before he got down everyone's name, Halt whirled around to catch someone sneaking up behind him. Before anyone could react, the man swept Halt up into a quick hug and released him, grinning. 

"I nearly had you that time, Halt." Halt shook his head in good-natured exasperation.

"Keep trying Gilan. Maybe one day you and your big feet will manage to sneak up on me."

Gilan laughed away the loving insult and Will stared up in awe at him. This was Halt's former apprentice that he talked about so much. Will was in the presence of a legend. 

Gilan was a tall and lanky man with olive skin who seemed familiar somehow, like Will had already met him. It was probably the stories Halt had told him, Will decided, but that still didn't push away the feeling that he knew Gilan. 

"This is my apprentice Will." Halt stated with just a hint of pride in his voice. Gilan grinned at Will and just opened his mouth to ask him a question before someone called out for Gilan across the camp. 

Gilan sent an apologetic look to Halt and Will before heading off. There would be time to catch up later.  
~  
As Gilan gazed out at the forest, staking out hiding spots, his mind briefly wandered back to Halt and his new apprentice, Will. The boy was small, but granted everyone was small compared to Gilan, and Will already moved like a ranger. Just by looking at him, Gilan knew that Will was going to be a great ranger. Even more so than that, Gilan had the feeling that he had seen the kid before but he had no idea where. 

Gilan shook his head to clear his mind; he'd have a chance to talk more with Halt and Will tonight at the campfire and right now, Gilan really needed to find a hiding spot or Farrel would get him.  
~  
The next chance Will got to see Gilan was at the evening campfire where Crowley, Halt, Will, Gilan, and a few other ranger that Will didn't remember the names of congregated to relax after a long day. 

Crowley told a hilarious story about all the fake names he and Halt had assumed when they were fighting Morgarath, making everyone chuckle, and Halt retaliated with a story about the time Crowley had accidentally shared his sleeping roll with a nest of spiders. After the stories had been exhausted, Gilan turned to Halt. 

"How's Will treating you, Halt? Is he a better cook and cleaner than I am?" 

"Everyone's a better cook than you," grumbled Halt. 

Gilan laughed, loud and bright. "No need to tell me that. That's the one thing I thought I was going to fail." He addressed Will directly before turning back to Halt. "Helpful tip: never underestimate the cooking part of your exam. And always bring some honey, it never hurts."

Will appreciated the advice, but the mention of the word honey just made Gilan seem even more familiar and Will wracked his brian trying to think of any significant memories with honey. There was the time Horace had dared him to knock down a wasp's nest, but that wasn't it. There was the time- oh, thought Will. He knew exactly why he associated Gilan with honey.

"I know you!" Will pointed at the older man accusingly, eliciting stares from all around the campfire.

Gilan took the accusation in stride. "I'd hope so. We just met." 

"No, no. I knew you before." Will was adamant in his declaration. He had finally figured out where he knew Gilan from and Will couldn't believe he hadn't figured it out before. 

"Really?" Now Gilan's curiosity really was piqued. Halt and Crowley leaned forward 

"Yeah, Operation Mad Goose." 

It all clicked for Gilan. Will the apprentice was the little boy who had helped him all those years ago. There was no way.

"That was you?" he exclaimed, still unable to believe it. Will grinned and nodded vigorously. 

"Care to explain what in the world Operation Mad Goose is?" Halt was unaware of any team up between Gilan and Will. Frankly, it scared him a little to think of his two capable apprentices (Gilan would always be an apprentice in Halt's mind) had collaborated on a mysterious mission.

There was a pleased yet guilty look on Gilan's face as he slid his eyes over to Will. Will had the same expression mirrored on his face. They both looked at Halt and mentally tried to calculate if the reveal would be worth it. Will gave a small nod when Gilan glanced at him, asking for permission. It had been seven years; it was time to tell the truth.

"Operation Mad Goose was the name we called the prank where Gilan dropped a bucket of honey and feathers on you."

Halt's eyes bugged out as Crowley spit out his coffee onto Halt's lap. The new apprentice was the mysterious person who had helped Gilan prank Halt all those years ago? Will was the one who drove Halt crazy for weeks because he didn't know who had helped Gilan? This gathering just kept getting better and better. Crowley couldn't help himself; he burst out into laughter that sent birds flying. 

"This is the greatest moment of my life. Halt found feathers in his bed for weeks afterwards."

Gilan and Will had the decency to at least act like they were ashamed and duck their heads, but the small twin smirks on their faces betrayed the truth. The worst part was, Halt found himself impressed and proud of his two sons rather than angry. Fate had a way of tying everything together and Halt supposes that this was no different. 

He does have a reputation to uphold however, and between Crowley's laughs and his sons's slightly anxious gazes and the rangers surrounding him, Halt decides that he'll let his sons know how proud he is of them after they stew on what his possible retaliation could be. Maybe he'll get Crowley to dump honey onto their cloaks during the night. Crowley would like that, Halt thought idly. The young rangers aren't the only ones allowed to have fun.


End file.
